ENG 1102
Prof. Janet Shanteau
11/1/2016
Heritage in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”
A person’s heritage is a great representation of who they are and where they came from. Alice Walker’s short story is a life-like portrayal of symbolism and heritage. Walker’s “Everyday Use” tells the story of a mother and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee living in the 60’s or 70’s. Main character Dee an educated woman, struggles with understanding her family’s true heritage. Viewing her family’s true history as oppressive, Dee, in Alice Walker’s “Everyday use”, creates a more ideal heritage for herself, while refusing her actual heritage.
In the short story, main character Dee believes that her true family history is made up only of oppression. In the beginning of the story characters Mama and Maggie await the arrival of the daughter and sister Dee. …show more content…
Being the only educated woman in her family, Dee has moved away to attend college in Augusta. When Dee arrives home, her family is greeted by a new persona that represents her African heritage. As Dee is exiting the car the audience is given a description of Dee’s colorful dress. The description suggest that she is wearing traditional African clothes and jewelry. Walker describes the dress by saying “A dress so loud it hurts my eyes”. (79) As Dee approaches her mother and sister she greets them with the traditional Ugandan greeting, “Wa-su-zo-Teano”. To solidify her contemporary beliefs about her heritage, Dee changes her name. She now embraces her newfound African-heritage and sees it as an important part of her. In his literary analysis titled, Destroying To Save: Idealism and Pragmatism in Alice Walker’s “Every Day Use”, Sarnowski writes, “Dee/Wangero, more than any other character in the story, identifies and pursues corrective measures against the oppression of African-American society and culture.” In Walker’s short story, Dee as her mother to call her by her chosen name Wangero; “What happened to ‘Dee’?” I wanted to know. “She’s dead,” Wangero (Dee) said. “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after people who oppress me.” Alice Walker is, as David Cowart informs, “[satirizing] the heady rhetoric of late ‘60s black consciousness, deconstructing its pieties (especially the rediscovery of Africa) and asserting neglected values” (Cowart, 182). Dee assumes and argues with Mama that she was named after a white man or woman. Ironically, she rejects her true legacy, her name, and opts or one that ideally represents her African heritage. In the shorty story “Everyday Use”, it is apparent that main character Dee feels some reverence to some of the items in and around her family home. However, she but does not understand the importance of them and therefore feels no true connection. When Dee arrives she treats her family and house like an exhibition, she exploits both Mama and Maggie, taking pictures of them and their home. She makes sure that in every picture that she takes the family home is included in the shot. This piece of information is strange at first because it is revealed throughout the story that Dee hated the house, and had always had a taste for the finer things. While having dinner, Dee/Wangero behaves positively towards things that she might have once rejected; Things such as the wooden benches her father made, a butter churner top